Unlike Percy, Annabeth and Thalia understood the weight of the information that was revealed to them right now.
Annabeth immediately started rambling.
"Of course—the silver hair, eyes, and the bow—it was right there. The only thing that stopped me from reaching that conclusion was the fact that there had never been any precedent of that happening before…." She kept going on like that.
"Oh, my gods, and I thought my family was complicated," Thalia muttered in surprise, her eyes still widened at the information.
"Is it really that big of a deal?" Percy asked, confused by the reaction.
Annabeth turned her head so fast it seemed like she might have twisted her neck.
"What do you mean, Percy? Don't you know what this means?!" Annabeth then held herself back from saying Artemis's name. "The goddess of the hunt had vowed celibacy, and she is not supposed to have a child."
"But Athena also had a vow like that, right? But even then, there are lots of kids of Athena here in camp. Annabeth, don't forget—you are Athena's child," Percy said as if trying to prove a point.
"That's entirely different! My mother still holds the vow she made. She only falls in love with the intellect of the person—there is nothing physical in the romance she has with mortals. All children of Athena are born from their minds. I told you about it last summer, Percy," Annabeth replied, a bit pissed off.
"Yeah, you did." Percy had the expression of a thinker right now. "You know, I never got around to ask—since you were born from thought instead of normally, do you have a bel—" Annabeth blushed even before Percy finished that sentence and immediately slapped his mouth with her hand.
"Why the hell are you asking me that question NOW?!" Annabeth shouted as her blush deepened.
"Mmmph, mmmmdhphhm mdf fff." (I was curious.) Most likely what Percy replied while his mouth was shut.
That went on for a few more minutes until finally Thalia decided to calm them down. But the answer to the question of whether Athena's kids have belly buttons or not was still not revealed.
"Alright, how does that even work, since you are her child?" Thalia looked at him from top to bottom. "Her modus operandi is to turn you into a girl to include you in her Hunters, right? Or are you a girl dressing up as a boy to hide it?" Thalia asked, and her eyes seemed to glow with a sort of curiosity similar to those of Aphrodite's kids.
"No, I'm male, and the complications of my birth made it so that she was not able to change my gender," Silva replied, but Thalia had a disappointed expression on her face at that.
"Wait, so how did you get to the camp again? The campers said you reached here when you were five years old," Percy asked curiously.
"Well, I was raised by someone else for five years, and by that time I had trained myself to survive in the wild. Then, with a bit of help, I reached camp." He then turned to Thalia. "That's more than enough for you to trust me, right?" he asked, to which Thalia nodded.
Things were a bit more peaceful after that. Seeing that there was no bad blood left between Annabeth, Thalia, and himself, Silva decided to use this opportunity to leave the camp temporarily.
He asked permission from Chiron, who had returned by then, and got a few days' leave.
Silva then took a train to go to a distant forest after reaching the city.
His aim was to test out the abilities of the armband he had bought from the Egyptian old lady. He had no idea how the armband would work in battle, and he was not keen on using it in an emergency situation first. He took it out of his bag and looked at it. It was a simple bracelet-looking artifact that seemed a bit rough around the edges. It had its wear and tear since it was old, but Silva was able to clearly sense the energy within the armband.
After reaching the stop, Silva left the train and jumped toward the forest directly while using the Mist to make sure that no one noticed a teenager running toward the forest alone. He kept absorbing the energy from the forest and began running as fast as he could for a total of four hours.
By then, he had reached a considerable distance from any sort of civilization. Some might say he was overdoing it, but what he was trying to do right now was extremely dangerous. In the canon, Percy, Annabeth, Carter, and Sadie had all agreed to make sure that the Egyptian and Greek pantheons must be kept separate because of the power that came from combining both pantheons.
So the things planned by Silva for the next few days of break were simple: find out the capabilities of the armband while used in tandem with his archery; find out the energy emitted due to its use; determine how much it could combine with his abilities other than his archery; and learn the price he would have to pay for using this ability.
And most importantly, would he be able to mask the fact that he was using an Egyptian artifact in front of the Greek and Roman pantheons?
Silva took out the unremarkable armband, wore it on his left arm, and summoned his bow.
As he pulled the string, he inserted the abundant energy he was getting from the forest into the armband and his bow at the same time.
Suddenly, the armband started vibrating. Within seconds, cracks began appearing on its surface, and finally it broke apart to reveal the armband's true color. It was made of white ivory with a simple design in amber.
The next moment, he felt a change in the arrow he had notched in the bow. This was an ordinary arrow without the arrow arts of explosions or anything he had gotten as gifts from his seniors. He had not even added much energy into it. But he still decided to check the changes caused by the combination of pantheon items.
He released the arrow.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!
"Oh, that's bad," Silva muttered as he looked at the large gap he had made in the forest with that arrow. "Guess today's the time to see whether I can make plants grow."
A/N – Hope you liked it.